Papua New Guinea’s Foreign Minister Justin Tkachenko has made it clear that Biden plans to meet members of the Pacific Islands Forum bloc in the capital as the United States tries to ramp up its diplomatic campaign to court allies in the region.
Papua New Guinea’s foreign minister said Saturday that US President Joe Biden will meet 18 leaders of the South Pacific region during his visit to the archipelago next May, in a sign of a renewed drive to attract allies in the region.
Papua New Guinea’s Foreign Minister Justin Tkachenko said Biden plans to meet members of the Pacific Islands Forum bloc in the capital as the United States tries to ramp up its diplomatic campaign to court allies in the region.
Among the invited leaders are the Prime Ministers of Australia and New Zealand.
Washington and Beijing are locked in a struggle for influence in a region that was once marginal from a diplomatic point of view but is now increasingly seen as of commercial, political and military importance.
Biden is scheduled to arrive on May 22 in Papua New Guinea, where he will be the first sitting US president to visit the archipelago in at least a century.
The US president is also scheduled to attend the G7 summit in Hiroshima, Japan and a summit in Sydney, Australia, with an informal alliance called the Quad that the US is forming with Japan, Australia and India.
